Struggling to Remember, Unable to Forget
by Curlyboff
Summary: John wakes up in hospital, bandaged and confused, only remembering up to Baskerville. Asking around, he has to find the answers his brain tries to protect him from, uncovering the hurt he tried to hide. Post Reich angst fic, not for the faint hearted.
1. Awakenings

AN: **Hello! Jess is back, you lovely people who actually read my stories! This was a prompt given to me by the lovely Joni (CountryGrl on here, go read her stuff, it's awesome.) who is my fandom twin, and after Beta reading this fic, regrets giving me the prompt due to feels. "John has Amnesia and can't remember Reichenbach." Here we go.**

Deep within his haze, John hears the steady beep of a heart monitor beside him. _Beep._ He frowns in his sleep, trying to emerge from his dazed state, trying to see where he is. _Beep._ He manages to open his eyes, instantly shutting them against the sterile glare of the hospital room._Beep_. He gradually reopens his eyes, straining to see anything around him. A friendly-looking nurse sees him awaken and walks cheerfully into the room.

"Hello, Doctor Watson. My name is Mary. Do you know where you are?" She begins to check his vitals, seeing the confusion on his face.

"I'm in a hospital, but I don't know why." John frowns, looking down at himself for the first time, seeing his legs in plaster, feeling the weight of bandages on his head.

Mary smiles softly and sadly at him. "I think we should get one of your friends to explain that to you, Doctor Watson." She finishes examining him and slowly moves out the room. "I'll send one of them in for you, they're waiting outside."

John feels the bandages on his head gingerly, running a hand over the bumps on his scalp and face. "What happened to me..?" He asks himself softly, unable to remember anything. He closes his eyes and tries to cast his mind back, remembering being in Baskerville, the drug-gas and tea, then nothing. _It must just be a side effect of the drug_, he thinks. _I must have tripped or been hit by a car or something and I can't remember anything because of that gas,_ he reassures himself. John leans back on the pillows, waiting for Sherlock to appear.

Soon, Greg appears in the room, a sad look on his face. "It's nice to see you awake, John." He sighs, taking a seat.

"Hey, Greg." John smiles at him. "Where's Sherlock?"

Greg's face falls into a pitying and almost desperate look. "John, how much do you remember?"

"Not much, I remember being in Baskerville and then waking up here. Is Sherlock on a case?" he asks, the look of innocent questions still clear on his face. Greg looks down at his hands, unable to meet John's eye or answer his question. He quickly excuses himself, his face betraying all the raw emotion he feels.

John strains to hear Greg talking in the corridor; he's discussing something with the nurses and another man, not Sherlock though. John hears the words "amnesia" and "suicide" be thrown about, causing John's face to fall once more into a confused and slightly worried look. "Greg…?" He calls out. "Where is Sherlock?"

Greg walks into the room, puffed eyes showing that he's evidently been crying. "John, I'm so sorry." He sits down next to the doctor and takes his hand. "Sherlock's dead."


	2. Understandings

AN: Here we go! Chapter two, of Angst Angst Angst!

"D-dead?" John cries, looking in horror at the inspector. "No, that can't be right; I would have remembered something like that, wouldn't I?" The doctor says despairingly. "Please, don't lie Greg." He yells, jerking his hand away.

"I'm so sorry John." Greg mumbles, crying slightly himself.

"How did it happen?" John asks, shaking.

Greg takes a deep breath; he was going to have to explain everything. "John... Sherlock was a fake." He sighs, registering the look of shock on John's face. "He lied to us all. We found out that he had set up crimes, that he hired Moriarty, just so he could show off how clever he really was." Greg mutters. There was no point in trying to lie to John, no point in harming John's emotional health by entertaining the doubts the Inspector held, the facts were there in black and white. "He jumped off the roof of this hospital and killed himself."

John shakes his head. "Greg, no... That can't be it." He whispers, not wanting to believe the man in front of him. "He's Sherlock Holmes; he can't just be a fake. He can't..." John begins to sob, crying into his sheets. "Why don't I remember any of this?" He demands.

Greg sighs once more. "A month after Sherlock died, you couldn't take it anymore." He looks at John sadly. "You tried to kill yourself in the same way he had, but you survived with brain injuries and two broken legs." Greg looks away from John. "You've been in a coma for a week, you've got amnesia." He states, not sure what else he can do. "I'm sorry."

John waves a hand at him, turning away. "Please, just leave me alone." He mumbles, curling up into a ball as much as his shattered limbs would let him, trying to pull back the pieces of his broken heart. Greg sighs one final time and leaves, shaking his head.

John hears the door close softly and lets himself cry, lets out the raw and painful emotion he feels. _How could you lie to me…? _He asks himself, wanting nothing but to go back a month, go back and see Sherlock, his best friend, ask him whether he could really be a fraud. John casts his mind back. _He knew everything about me within moments of meeting me, how could a man like that be a fake? _Doubt however, begins to make it's fickle way through John's mind, playing on every single niggling doubt John had, even the ones he never knew he even had. _Donovan always thought he was off… Where did the skull come from anyway… He never did understand emotion, isn't that the marker of a sociopath anyway? _Soon John too began believing the lie, as much as he wanted to believe in Sherlock, the very idea that Sherlock would give in like that, killing the very vessel of his genius…. It seemed conclusive proof, even without the witness testimony.

John closes his eyes and breathes out raggedly, the devastation of his heart apparent as he weeps quietly in the ward, not wishing to disturb the nurses or face the awkward situation of having Greg or even Mycroft appear. _So many people left behind. So many people tricked. _John finally manages to fall into a restless and fitful sleep, he sees the ghost of Sherlock behind his eyes, the images of his dead friend… _Was he really a friend? _John shakes his head fitfully. _Don't even start thinking like that John. _His addled brain, that did such a good job of 'protecting' him from the memories, doesn't cease showing John the scenes of their friendship, the idiosyncrasies of the detective, the life well lived together. Conflicted, John wakes up in the bed, fresh tears tracked across his face. "Sherlock..?" He whispers, wishing into the wind that he can just see the detective once more, just once.


	3. Dreamings

AN: Hello! Once more, have some angst! Thanks again to my wonderful beta reader Joni on this chapter, whom I am giving feels to. Enjoy!

Eventually, John is discharged, with the help of Greg. He limps on his crutches to the taxi, stubbornly refusing additional help.

"Honestly Greg, I'm fine." he mutters, getting into the cab and heading back home to Baker Street. He hasn't looked at a newspaper, hasn't watched television for fear of some damning report on his former… colleague. John resolutely limps up the steps to 221b and sighs slightly as the mingle of familiar smells hits him as he surveys the place. There's more washing up than he remembers, but that's it. Nothing else has changed.

John fumbles around the flat, tidying and trying to see if anything will provoke his memories, anything to remember Sherlock by, to see why he would do something as rash as killing himself. There must be an explanation in the debris of 221b.

Shaking his head sadly, he moves on through the flat to Sherlock's old bedroom, tempting himself with the thoughts, the memories still lodged in his brain, trying to piece back the fragments. He limps in and sits on the perfectly unmade bed, the messiness just so… _Sherlock._ He sighs sadly, unable to remember. He straightens out the dent made from where he's sat and walks out of the room, closing the door on the memories.

Evening falls before John has finished tidying the flat. He gets distracted by looking though his blog. He runs his hands through his sandy hair, minding the small stitches still embedded in his skull. He sees the comments of support, sees them fade in number as the hope begins to die, physically sees the tide of people turning away from Sherlock, disparaging him and exposing him as a fraud. He shakes his head sadly as he puts his laptop away, saddened at the further proof of the extent of his deception. John eventually decides to go to bed, slowly working his way up the stairs into the familiar and homely room that was his own. He lets his head fall onto the pillow and within moments is asleep.

"Hello, John."

John hears a deep and horribly familiar voice within his dreaming daze. He frowns and tries to ignore it.

"John, listen to me."

He shakes off the thought, trying to focus on something else in his mind, trying to remove the dream.

"I'm so sorry."

John buries his face in the pillow, trying to do something, anything to stop this mental torture, the face of Sherlock swimming behind his lids, the one place no one can protect him from, his most vulnerable place.

"Just don't stop believing in me." the voice mutters sadly, in earnest.

John curls up on himself, conflicted with what reality is telling him and what he so wants to believe. A light touch on his hand wakes the doctor up fully from his nightmarish daze. John looks around feverishly.

"Sherlock?" he calls out, desperate to see or hear him again. "Sherlock?"

He calls through the flat, limping furiously on his crutches. He gets into the living room and flops onto the sofa, resigning himself; it was his brain tricking him. Again. Crying slightly, John curls up on the sofa, torn between forgetting and remembering, a useless and horrifying purgatory.


	4. A Sibling Meeting

AN: Hey guys, SO VERY SORRY FOR THE WAIT. IM SORRY. Will be updating a lot more soon!

Love, Jess x

Time passes painfully slowly for the doctor. The lively humdrum of cases gone, the excitement of having Sherlock beside him sorely missed. John tries fitfully to find out _why _the great detective would do something like this, but before long the trail dries up, the clues vanish and he finally decides it might be time to start letting him go.

John's sifting through the debris of the flat, the remnants of their last case strewn across every surface. He reaches Sherlock's notes and sighs, not giving them a second glace before unceremoniously dumping them in the black bin bag at his feet. John works slowly and painfully, erasing the very last traces of the detective from his flat, earnestly trying to remove the residual vestiges from his mind.

Try as he might, sleep is the only time he can't protect his mind, the nightmares return. It used to be from the war, now it's Sherlock. Always Sherlock. His icy blue eyes staring dead past him, the cold feel of his skin under his hands, the blood matted in his hair and the pavement. Fitfully, John gets up one of these nights to stare out on London's skyline, lit artificially, giving the city an almost haunted look. John feels torn, he wants to forget, and yet it just doesn't feel _right. _

It's been three months since Sherlock died before John starts to feel normal again. He's no longer treated like the grieving widower, or someone who needs to be handled carefully. He's just John now. Not a blogger, not a boswell, but a Doctor. He returns to work soon after his legs have healed, his old cane his constant friend.

He's in the flat one evening, finishing up his paperwork for the day when he hears the steady _tap. tap. tap. _of an umbrella on the stairs. John can't help but wince, the Elder Holmes isn't exactly on the list of favoured house guests.

"Good evening Mycroft." John calls, not looking up from his work.

The aforementioned politician walks into the room. "Am I really that predictable John?" He asks with a small sad smirk.

"What do you want?" He asks, giving the man a weary look. "I still can't remember anything, and if I'm honest, I don't want to." He mutters bitterly.

"Doctor Watson." Mycroft's tone turns icy. "You are the sole person who has not been implicated in this scandal that should have a chance at seeing that Sherlock is not a fake."

"_Was." _John retorts. "You're speaking of him in the present tense. He's gone."

Mycroft's face falls slightly at this. "He could be still alive. He's clever enough, I'm sure he could have-"

"Mycroft!" John interrupts. "Let go of your deluded idea that somehow he could be alive! He's dead, buried and rotting in the ground!" He yells. "I don't know whether you're trying to get pity, or to somehow alleviate any guilt you might have over his death, but there's no point to any of it!" John looks away from the man, not wanting to see how his words have affected him. "You should go." He mutters after a few moments of testy silence.

The Elder Holmes does as he is told, turning on his heel and trying to maintain his icy exterior, but failing slightly as he leaves the flat with a sob. John sighs and runs his head through his hands. Alienating his friends (well, Mycroft) wasn't part of his plan for the evening. Sighing abysmally, John limps towards the sofa and sits down, too emotionally drained to do anything but stare out the window, hoping for his rain to clear.


End file.
